If passed, Senate Bill 962 would require every smartphone sold in
or shipped to California to have the mechanism installed by as
early as January 2015, with smartphone manufacturers given until
June of this year to come up with solutions for integrating the
technology into their devices.

State Senator Mark Leno, San Francisco Attorney George Gascon,
and other officials and law enforcement officers co-authored the
document in hopes that the wireless industry would wake up to the
realities of unusually high phone theft statistics in California,
AP reported.

Mobile phone theft accounts for almost one in three US robberies,
according to the Federal Communications Commission. The rates are
even higher in California, accounting for 60 percent of thefts in
San Francisco and 75 percent in nearby Oakland.

San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr spoke to AP, saying he
couldn’t “imagine someone would vote against” the bill
in California, which is considered to be the “technological
hub of the world.” Gascon said he sees no reason to reject
the law either, citing the $7.8 billion already being spent on
selling phone loss and theft insurance. He thinks the law is the
next logical step.

As Leno put it, the wireless industry has a choice – “They
can either be a part of the problem or part of the solution,
especially when there is one readily available.”

Despite the levels of money spent on selling insurance on mobile
devices, Gascon stressed that the industry must take action to
end the victimization of its customers.

"This is one of the areas in the criminal justice system
where a technological solution can make a tremendous difference,
so there's absolutely no argument other than profit," he
stated.

In practical terms, Bill 962 allows customers to disable the kill
switch once the technology is up and running. However, network
providers are forbidden from coercing or encouraging them to do
it. Doing so would risk a $500-$2,500 fine for companies,
Technewsworld.com reported.

The proposal is not new. Samsung already pitched the idea last
year, but major network providers rejected the idea. Apple’s iOS
7, released only a couple months ago, already has a feature
preventing thieves from turning off the ‘find my phone’ feature
on their iPhones.

There are also those who do not see the legislation as a cure-all
solution, on the grounds that a permanent kill switch seriously
risks exposing the phone to hacker attacks, including ones that
target not only consumer phones, but those belonging to US
government officials.

CTIA, The Wireless Association, wants to develop an integral
solution. Their phone theft database is the start of one, they
think. It seeks to eliminate the market for trading in stolen
cell phones.

"These 3G and 4G/LTE databases, which blacklist stolen phones
and prevent them from being reactivated, are part of the
solution," said a statement by Michael Altschul, the
organization’s vice president. But in order to work as intended,
“we need more international carriers and countries to
participate to help remove the aftermarket abroad for these
trafficked devices.”

"CTIA and its member companies moved as quickly as possible
to work with the FCC, law enforcement officials from major cities
and other policymakers to develop the proactive, multifaceted
approach of databases, technology, consumer education,
legislation and international partnerships to remove the
aftermarket for stolen phones," Altschul told the E-Commerce
Times.

In short, some professionals in the industry believe the bill to
be currently “unenforceable,” because it has been slow to
incorporate all the necessary factors needed for it to really
work. However, the bill is not predicted to solve other issues,
like the violence involved with theft or the real motives behind
such instances.

Director at ABI Research, Jeff Orr, told the E-Commerce Times
that he does not “believe the kill switch will remove the
motivation behind the thefts.”